Prog Blogs, Orgs & Alumni
Bank Slate
Betsy Devine
birch paper
Democracy for NH
Granite State Progress
Mike Caulfield
Miscellany Blue
Pickup Patriots
Re-BlueNH
Still No Going Back
Susan the Bruce
New Hampshire Labor News
Chaz Proulx: Right Wing Watch
Defending New Hampshire Public Education
Politicos & Punditry
The Burt Cohen Show
John Gregg
Landrigan
Pindell
Primary Monitor
Scala
Schoenberg
Spiliotes
Campaigns, Et Alia.
NH-Gov
- Maggie Hassan
- Jackie Cilley
NH-01
- Andrew Hosmer
- Carol Shea-Porter
- Joanne Dowdell
NH-02
- Ann McLane Kuster
ActBlue Hampshire
NHDP
DCCC
DSCC
DNC
National
Balloon Juice
billmon
Congress Matters
DailyKos
Digby
Hold Fast
Eschaton
FiveThirtyEight
MyDD
Open Left
Senate Guru
Swing State Project
Talking Points Memo
50 State Blog Network
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Texas
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
So UNH, paired, as they are on occasion, with the Boston Globe, put out the eleventy hundreth NH-Primary poll of the GOP presidential aspirant circus. Snooze.
Until you dig into it and see that someone made an excellent decision to ask interesting questions of the poll respondents.
Let's start with the deficit-busting Bush tax cuts:
The first district Congressman continues to do all the right things politically. This week, he was in the paper for visiting a school, and now he is holding job fairs for veterans.
Politically, Frank Guinta is doing all the right things. In terms of actual help for veterans, not so much:
I had the displeasure recently of attending U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta's job fair at the New Hampshire Community College in Manchester. My son, who is a U.S. Marine, and I traveled from the Monadnock Region to attend this job fair. We arrived just before 10 a.m.
Companies with applications were nowhere to be found, not a good thing for veteran job-seekers. They had a table with some snacks on it...
It was a sorry excuse for wasting my gas money. I didn't see one representative from a company that had job applications.
Politically, this taxpayer funded Google Ad is effective:
Congressman Frank Guinta is fighting to strengthen & preserve Social Security and Medicare
The political gold of that ad, paid for by you and me, is that it omits candidate Guinta's stated support - on video - for abolishing Social Security. Or Congressman Guinta's interest in privatizing Medicare, on record even before he voted for the Ryan plan - which ends Medicare.
Politically, Frank Guinta's photo op in front of a project funded with stimulus money was especially effective. A central pillar of candidate Frank Guinta's campaign was his opposition to the American Recovery Act. Here's one of numerous examples:
"When will Congresswoman Shea-Porter finally agree with the rest of us who believe her failed stimulus was a waste of our money?"
Claims that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme are just part of a continuing right-wing campaign to smear our most successful, and most popular, government program.
Social Security was created in 1935 to solve a problem: millions of Americans were living in poverty due to retirement or the death of the family breadwinner.
The solution was simple: a system where every worker pays in, and in return is guaranteed a retirement income. Benefits for widows, orphans and the disabled are also part of the deal.
The system has worked. Poverty among the elderly has declined from about 60% in the 1930s to about 10% today.
Social Security is not a retirement fund, it is social insurance. Your taxes are like insurance premiums that qualify you for benefits. The benefits you receive during your lifetime could be more or less than what you pay into the system.
If you die young and leave behind children, Social Security will pay benefits for your children until they are 18. No IRA will do that.
If you live to be 110, your Social Security checks will never run out. No 401K plan will do that.
If you become disabled and unable to work, Social Security has you covered, every month. No "individualized account" will do that.
Our nation is struggling with huge budget deficits, but Social
Security is not to blame. In 2010, Social Security benefits exceeded Social Security taxes by $49 billion, but that was only about 3% of the federal deficit, and the shortfall was covered by the $2.5 trillion Social Security Trust Fund. Slashing Social Security because of the budget deficit would be punishing people who did not cause the problem.
Some have argued that the Social Security Trust Fund is a sham,
because it is invested entirely in US government bonds, which they call "a bunch of worthless IOUs." This flies in the face of basic economics. An IOU is a promise to pay. Our entire economy is built on IOUs. When you deposit money in a bank, what you get back is an IOU, a promise to repay you when you want to make a withdrawal. The bank lends the money to others, and it receives IOUs. When you pay with a credit card, the credit card company actually pays the merchant, and an IOU is created from you to the credit card company.
The Social Security Trust Fund is invested in US government bonds for two reasons: first, it prevents Congress from playing politics with the money; second, US government bonds are the safest IOU in the world, which is why they bear the lowest interest rate.
Social Security scare tactics include claims that Social Security has unfunded liabilities of "over $20 trillion." This fanciful figure comes from adding up all future benefits, as if we must have all that future money on hand now. But Social Security has always been a system where today's workers are paying for today's retirees. It's worked for over 75 years, and there's no reason it can't continue to work.
We fund Social Security the same way we fund the Department of Defense-current expenditures are paid out of current tax revenue. We know we have huge future defense obligations, due to our treaties with allies, long-term weapons contracts, and the cost of caring for veterans. Our long-term, unfunded defense obligations are in the trillions of dollars. This is a scary number only if we assume we have to pay it today, and ignore expected future tax revenues.
Social Security does face a long-term fiscal challenge. The Social Security Administration projects that by 2036, the Trust Fund will be exhausted, and Social Security tax revenue will be about 25% less than expected benefits. The payout of Social Security benefits is rising faster than tax revenue due to the retirement of the baby boomers, and longer life expectancy. This doesn't mean the system is broken. It simply means that we need to make adjustments, by raising taxes, lowering benefits, and/or delaying the retirement age. Small changes enacted now can have a huge impact over the long term. Some Democrats in Congress have pointed out that requiring those with incomes over $250,000 to pay the same Social Security tax as regular working folks would provide the system with enough revenue for the next 75 years.
Social Security faced a similar challenge in the 1980's, when it appeared the system would run out of money. Congress and President Reagan agreed to a package of changes, including tax increases and a later retirement age. There is no reason changes in the system cannot be made now, preserving the long-term health of Social Security for our grandchildren and beyond.
Mark Fernald was the Democratic nominee for Governor in 2002.
"My kids are six and five. They shouldn't know what Social Security is."
Congressman Frank Guinta, September 2011:
we shouldn't talk about eliminating Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid. We should talk about preserving it, protecting it, making it financially sound.
People who want to represent you really shouldn't be duplicitous.
"We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age."
President Roossevelt at the signing of the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935. For 76 years, Social Security has been the most successful anti-poverty program ever created in the United States.
There is a tentative debt ceiling deal, and this Administration and Congressional Democrats seem to have won everything they wanted: Republicans get to have multiple "we don't approve" votes before 2012 on raising the debt ceiling, there won't be any new revenue, there's going to be another "hostage-taking" event around Christmastime, for many Democrats the issue of the Ryan Budget and the dismantling of Medicare is likely off the table for the 2012 electoral cycle, and the Administration seems to have figured out a way to not involve itself in shaping the way that entitlement reform will work out.
All in all, it's some pretty slick negotiating, and I'm sure this Administration and Democratic Congressional leaders must be very proud.
Even on bad days, however, you gotta have some fun, and that's why I'm encouraging everyone to take a minute today to say #thanksalot.
I have not been talking about the insanity around the debt ceiling and debt and deficit and the efforts of Republicans to drive us all off the cliff, but I am today - and I'm going to do it by allowing you to grab ahold of this problem and see for yourself just how unbelievably bad this manufactured crisis is going to be.
You will hear a lot of conversation about the consequences from others; today, however, you are going to get the chance to be both the President and the Secretary of the Treasury, and you will get to decide for yourself exactly what bills the Federal Government should and should not pay as the cash runs out if a deal is not made by the time borrowing authority runs out.
At that point you'll be able to see what's coming for yourself - and once you do, you won't need me to tell you what ugly is going to look like.
House Republican leaders have called off negotiations with the White House over a broad deficit reduction deal tied to an increase in the federal debt limit and will begin exclusive talks with Senate leaders to avert a government default on Aug. 2, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced Friday. Boehner told House Republicans in a letter that President Obama is "adamant" about raising taxes and would not agree to "fundamental changes" to entitlement programs.
Hooray for the president! It's about time!
Let's help him hold firm.
The topic on the Exchange this morning was Social Security. Here's a comment I posted there, to highlight one aspect of this debate that seems to be overlooked. Hope this is not redundant for many of you.
It seems that among the heroes of the American Revolution, often invoked by tea-partiers, "natural rights" enthusiasts and others who wish to see the end of Social Security and other government programs to alleviate poverty, we have Thomas Paine (1737-1809), author of the pamphlet Common Sense, without which the American Revolution might not have happened.
Paine also authored another pamphlet, this one less well known but no less important. It is called Agrarian Justice, and in it we find a social insurance plan for both the elderly and those just starting out in life.
From Social Security Online:
The benefits were to be paid from a national fund accumulated for this purpose. The fund was to be financed by a 10% tax on inherited property. A tax on inherited property was used due to Paine's general philosophy of property rights.
The pamphlet was written in French during the winter of 1795-1796. Paine was living in France at the time and was involved with the beginning stages of the French Revolution. It was published in English in 1797.
Frank Guinta has been clear about his desire to dismantle the American safety net. He doesn't want his children to know what Social Security is, and he voted to end Medicare for those under 55.
(Since that vote, he's earned an upside down favorability rating.)
Incredibly, Democratic President Barack Obama is willing to chip away at those programs for the sake of a "Grand Bargain" on the deficit, a concession that is both remarkably poor public policy and politically disastrous. What he wants in return from Republicans is to end the Bush-Obama tax giveaways to the wealthiest.
Equally incredibly, Frank Guinta lays out his own priorities:
"I have a core belief that I've maintained that raising taxes doesn't solve the problem,'' said Representative Frank Guinta, a New Hampshire Republican who was elected with support from Tea Party activists.
He's spectacularly wrong, of course.
But to the larger point: our President has given Frank Guinta the chance to chip away at the safety net, but he won't bite if it disturbs the free ride the rich have had for the past ten years.
Remember this when the government defaults and you don't get your Social Security check in the mail.
By now you have heard that President Obama has chosen to throw Social Security and the Medicare and Medicaid Programs over the side of his proverbial fishing boat as bait to see if he can get Republicans to give him another really lousy compromise, much as he did last December when he gave up billions upon billions of deficit reduction in order to help Republicans preserve tax cuts for billionaires.
And it looks like the President doesn't really lose if you or I get hurt here: in fact, it seems that, in his eyes, it's to his advantage to fight against his own base as he seeks to be "the adult in the room" in the runup to the '12 election.
So we're going to have to find a way to put The Fear on this guy - and I think I've got a plan to force this President to listen.
And it works like this: if this President ain't gonna be moved by our message...we do it by holding the rest of his Party hostage.
Have you ever had what you thought was a good idea, but nobody else agreed with you, and they became annoyed when you tried to push it on them. That's the position Republicans find themselves in with respect to their "starve the beast" policy. "The beast" is the size of government. Starving the beast refers to reducing the size of government by denying it revenue. If the money isn't available, then branches, bureaus, departments and agencies of government will be terminated.
Reducing the size of government isn't necessarily a bad idea to my thinking. There are always parts of it that are wasteful, unnecessary, or ineffective, and should be pruned. But, the starving the beast policy is yet another example of Republican overreach. In the extreme, the plan produces the same end results advocated by New Hampshire's controversial Free State Project.
The Free Staters seek to reduce government "to the minimal functions of protecting life, liberty, and property." (Jason Soren, 2001). That sounds very patriotic and appealing until it is realized that this definition does not include such commonly-accepted functions of government as providing public education, protecting consumers from corporate abuse, and the care of the elderly and disabled.
Republicans have been actively promoting their starve the beast policy for some time. The tax cuts passed with the blessing of the George W. Bush administration ballooned the national debt by $2.6 trillion between 2001 and 2010. That was not necessarily a bad thing from the GOP's point of view because it created a financial crisis where government spending absolutely must be cut (and, thus, the beast starved) to reduce the deficit, resulting in the likely elimination of governmental programs. "Hooray," cheers the GOP, "Starve the beast is working. The size of government will be reduced."
Even today, Republicans fervently advocate additional tax cuts to solve the nation's financial problems. Those cuts will further reduce federal and state revenue, and create more pressure to shrink the size of government. And, the GOP reasons, added tax reductions will be popular with the public, for who doesn't like more money in their pockets?
But, here's where Republicans overreached, and went astray. First, they attempted to privatize Social Security during George W. Bush's term in office. That move was met with hostility and resistance from the general public who (surprise! surprise!) liked to invest in a social program during working years that resulted in a modest, reliable pension during retirement.
Not in the least deterred, the GOP recently tried to end another social program, Medicare, by advocating a voucher plan conceived by Congressman Paul Ryan. Ryan's proposal would give individuals $6000 each to negotiate their own health insurance policies with private companies. Yikes, the public is to be delivered to the not-so-tender mercies of insurance companies! We've been down that road before. Good luck with that, Mr. and Mrs. USA.
Again, to Republicans' surprise, Ryan's plan was met with hostility virtually everywhere. It turns out that older Americans very much like government-run Medicare.
On June 1 through June 8 of this year, the UNH Survey Center conducted a poll in New Hampshire for the Boston Globe. One might have thought that libertarian New Hampshire would confirm the GOP's fondest dreams, both endorsing tax cuts and condemning government-run social programs like Social Security and Medicare. Not so.
The Globe (6/12/11) writes, "Also striking are the remedies that poll respondents said they would prefer to deal with these problems - responses that run counter to the rollback of social program spending and tax cuts that most candidates in the emerging Republican (presidential) field now advocate. Despite the state's antitax reputation, most poll respondents said that they would prefer to reduce the deficit by raising taxes on the wealthy, rather than by eliminating federal agencies or cutting spending on Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security."
It must be disheartening to Republican ideologues to discover that Americans are not yearning for a free market society where people must fend for themselves without the aid of government. While people understand that private enterprise is the engine that powers the nation's economy; nevertheless, they support federal and state programs that help assure their financial and medical well being, as well as that of fellow citizens.
That curious blend of faintly socialistic programs and bully boy capitalism has coexisted productively and beneficially for our country for many years. If the average citizen has the subtlety and flexibility of thought to comprehend that these two approaches can work together fruitfully, then one might hope that politicians would stop trying to ram either pure Ayn Rand capitalism or unadulterated socialism down our throats. Are you listening Tea Partiers and Free Staters?
Recently down in DC the NRCC stirred to help their "most vulnerable members," including our own Charlie Bass and Frank Guinta. In addition to demographic and electoral concerns, no doubt a big reason our two congressmen are on that list is their vote to turn Medicare into Vouchercare.
Interestingly, the head of the NRCC, Rep. Pete Sessions, is now going further. He wants to destroy Social Security by "reforming" it:
House Republicans on Friday introduced legislation that would allow workers to partially opt out of Social Security immediately, and fully opt out after 15 years.
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, and several other Republicans introduced the Savings Account for Every American (SAFE) Act. Under the bill, workers would immediately have 6.2 percent of their wages sent to a "SAFE" account each year.
That would take the place of the 6.2 percent the workers now contributed to Social Security.
As many will remember, Medicare foe Paul Ryan tried something similar with John E. Sununu and George W. Bush back in 2005; popular opposition to the privatization scheme was widespread and contributed significantly to the Democrats' electoral advantage in 2006.
But I am curious how this plays out for Frank Guinta, who clearly needs the NRCC's help, and who - very clearly - has expressed his desire for the abolition of America's most trusted safety net for seniors:
Will Frank Guinta sign on as co-sponsor to the Sessions bill? After all, when he debated Carol Shea-Porter on the issue last fall, he flailed around in the absence of a plan. Session's bill to destroy the "Social" part to Social Security is a plan right up his alley.
Adding: an eagle-eyed reader alerts me to the dangers already lurking (.pdf) in the Ryan plan on Social Security. So one way or another, the push to dismantling the middle class is on.
Just got a lengthy robo-poll call from Rasmussen, wide-ranging subjects and fairly interactive with answers via dial pad choices.
Mostly the usual stuff, most important issues, country on right track or wrong track (nothing like a meaningless binary measure there), etc. But, the most interesting to me was the "who's qualified to be POTUS" list for the R's, and some names NOT mentioned: Romney, Guiliani, and Palin. However, Gingrich, Pawlenty, Caine, Christie, Bachmann, Ron Paul, were all mentioned, and I may have missed a couple (maybe Huntsman, but I got bored along the way).
One always has the distinct impression that each question is predicated on the answer that was given before, and the whole thing definitely sloped to the right (no surprise with Rasmussen) with a number of very vaguely worded questions when it came to ideology.
Anybody else get this one who remembers more specifics or different info from the foregoing?
They tell us we're dropping about $10 billion a month in Afghanistan so we can catch that Bin Laden guy...but eventually, we're gonna catch him, and as soon as we do you can imagine that folks will be wondering why we're still over there - and I gotta tell ya, I'm one of those people.
I mean, we're over here talking about how we're so broke that we have no choice but to cut a couple of billion from heat assistance for the poor, and a billion-and-a-half from the Social Security operations budget, and money from food stamps and childcare assistance and tornado forecasting in Alabama...but every single month, just as regular as clockwork, we seem to be able to find another $10 billion to spend in Afghanistan, even as we have an economy that could badly use another round of truly productive stimulus.
And I don't think y'all even realize just how much money $10 billion really is - but today we're gonna see if we can't fix that with a bit of a thought exercise.
Imagine if we set up a program that took that Afghanistan money and spent it right here at home for a year or two - and it was spent in the form of a lottery, where we stimulate the larger economy, help fix the mortgage crisis, and create a more energy-independent nation, all at the same time.
I got all we need except a catchy name; with that in mind let's move on to the description of how the Happy Super Fun Day Peace Lotto Stimulus Thingy works.
Alan Simpson's cold relationship with AARP is no secret, but the former Republican Senator from Wyoming took it to a new level Friday. At an event hosted by the Investment Company Institute, Simpson delighted the finance industry audience members by aiming a rude gesture at the leading lobby for senior citizens.
Financial and investment interests have long been supportive of Simpson's broad critique of Social Security, since privatizing the old-age and disability support program would be a tremendous boon for Wall Street's financial managers. ICI represents mutual funds and other money managers who control more than $13 trillion in assets.
Simpson's forceful gesture came after an extended diatribe against Social Security, which he said is a "Ponzi" scheme, "not a retirement program."
One might expect a 79 year old former US Senator to have better impulse control, and to be capable of behaving like an adult in public. Apparently, one would be wrong. Alan Simpson should resign - voluntarily or not as the case may be.
Oh, my, has there been a lot of news since we spoke last about the Potential Impending Death Of Medicare: obviously we're going to have to talk about the implications of Osama Bin Laden's death (but we'll do that another day), President Obama very publicly congratulated Donald Trump for having the leadership skills to know that Gary Busey was the one who needed to be fired after the way he ran the men's cooking team on "The Apprentice", and, of course, there was that "extreme ironing incident" on the M1 near London's Mill Hill.
But what you may not have noticed is that in the past two weeks the Grim Weeper himself, Speaker of the House John Boehner, has gone from saying "I fully support Paul Ryan's budget, including on Medicare" to saying that the Paul Ryan "Let's Kill Medicare" plan is "an idea ... worthy of consideration"-and when that happens that quickly you know somebody applied what we might politely describe as being at least "an equal and opposite force".
And what I'm here to suggest today is that the opposite force in question...is you.
